Does anyone know a good guide/book to interpreting results from Google Analytics?

Question

I'm looking for a guide to interpreting results from Google Analytics. Also is there an API for accessing the data?

Answer 1

I'm looking for a guide to interpreting results from Google Analytics.

I like Advanced Web Metrics; it's come in quite handy. Recommended if you're at least somewhat familiar with analytics packages in general. Otherwise pick something a little simpler, like Google Analytics 2.0.

Also is there an API for accessing the data?

You can find the API here

Answer 2

Google released an Analytics API on Apr 21, 2009. As usual with Google, there are a few caveats:

• It is in "public beta". Everyone can use it, but they reserve the right to modify the API at any time.
• Most, but not all metrics and dimensions are available. You can mostly ignore this fact until you start doing advanced combinations.
• Read-only access.

They provide full developer documentation and an Analytics API Google Group for discussion.

http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/

Note: As a new SO user, I can't add any relevant links for this answer, so feel free to edit this post and add them in.